keith

I think my strop stroke is very much like yours, Marc. My Forschner blade  is 12″ long, so I have to break up the stropping procedure into three smaller segments.  I start at the heal of the blade and work toward the tip. I made a test polish to double check myself. I think, therefore, that my left hand gets lazy, and the away movement isn’t q…[Read more]

Thanks for the tip, Marc. It’s my left hand that will give me problems with cut leather. My cutting problems come and go. I think I need to slow down and concentrate on making a better stroke like yours. I think it’s my pull away at the end of the stroke that needs improving.

Keth

I checked all  my stones for parallel, which was very good. However, there is variability in the  distance from stone face to stone face among the stones. So, when I switch grits, I must check/reset the angle before cutting.  This factors out the gradual o.10 degree angle change provided by grit progression.  I could adjust my reset angle tha…[Read more]

ME:     When I wrapped them in tape, they grew 0.05″ in diameter.

TOM:  One quibble….the tape thickness probably is .005″ and not 50 thou.

Thanks, Tom. You are correct. I missed a decimal point.

meyer:

I love the chef idea. You’re right, we’d need a few different designs, based on one’s occupation.  Another could be of an executioner’s axe. Or Lizzy Borden’s. (joke) A Halloween specific shirt can show a vampire sharpening his fangs with a WE.

I dunno, guys. My two cents here probably isn’t worth two cents. A cheetah and a lion: which is the better cat? There is no better cat. Both are fine products of fine engineering. The observer may favor the lion’s power over the cheetah’s speed, and vice versa.  So it is with knives, it seems to me. If we assume two knives are of the finest…[Read more]

I forgot to mention that my rods’ diameters  measure 0.254″, the same as yours. So they must the new type. When I wrapped them in tape, they grew 0.05″ in diameter.

That’s very true, and I think about that. I wonder how accurate those angle finders are. So, when I set my stone/edge angle, I measure the angle two or three times. It’s a simple matter of rocking the instrument back and forth. If the  angle readouts are the same, I begin to sharpen. Sometimes the readout bumps back and forth by 0.5degree. I’ll  a…[Read more]

Gadzooks! How could I forget this source of error? When switching  grits of stones, the stone/edge angle can change, corrupting your  sharpening effort. Therefore, I check my angles with each grit change. I noticed that moving from stone pair to stone pair makes the biggest angle change. That tells me there is variability in the stone d…[Read more]

Wow. Very good stuff, guys. Thanks for the heads up. I’ll have to reconsider the Wusthoff.

Keith

I didn’t know those improvements occurred, Marc.  WE’s new enlarged rod diameter is right in line with the rod enlargement I made.   I admire WE’s desire to perfect their product. It’s a very clever thing to do, keeping the sharpener fiercely competitive. I can’t say that about every company. My ideas,  perhaps not new,  I hope, ought to help the…[Read more]

Thanks, Marc. Can you tell me what the substrate is under the leather? Is it aluminum?

My WE is a user, so I don’t know her exact age other than it had the  2017 L bracket. It was pretty much a Propack II kit. It was in new condition, so I made out like a fat rat. I added the micro adjustment fittings and later the glass platens.